The use of video telephony, which allows remote parties to both see and hear one another, is becoming increasingly popular. As used herein, “video telephony” refers to visual communication using both video and audio transmitted over a communications network. It includes both mobile and stationary video telephony. Typically, video telephony refers to packet-switched and circuit-switched, wireless and wired, audio and video communications, such as Voice Over IP or VOIP communications, and video teleconferencing. Such applications facilitate remote communication by providing a visual image of each conference participant. Accordingly, video conferencing allows parties to communicate audibly and visibly, without requiring lengthy and expensive travel.
In a typical video telecommunications application, a camera is positioned to obtain an image of each of the participants. The image of one participant is then provided to the other participant so that each participant is viewing the other participant during the communication session. The video telecommunications interaction can include two or more participants, each viewing an image of the other participant(s).
When conducting a video conference or point-to-point video call, a participant may desire to control the video displayed to the other participants for privacy and other reasons. For example, the participant may not want his or her face to be clearly viewable to one or more of the other participants. They may want to blur or mask the image of their face in the transmitted image information. The participant may want to block, from the transmitted image information, the images of objects, other than himself or herself, that are in the field of view of the camera(s). For example, the participant may wish to block office clutter or disarray, another person, or otherwise reconfigure his or her background to make it appear that the person is somewhere that he or she is not.
There are a variety of features in current video telecommunications applications for addressing some, but not all, of these issues. For example, a sending participant may mute the transmission of his or her image information so that the other party's video monitor is a blank screen. The party will receive an indication that the sending participant has muted his or her image information. While muting does provide a degree of privacy, it can be overkill. In many situations, the sending participant may be happy to allow himself or herself to be seen on the other participant's video monitor but wish for other features in the image information to be altered. Moreover, completely muting the image information may offend or otherwise upset the other party. He or she may retaliate by muting their image information so that the video telecommunication is converted effectively into an audio-only communication, thereby defeating the party's desires to have additional communication effected through visual gestures and facial expressions.
The receiver may also want to alter the image information received from the other participant. For example, the receiving participant may find the other party's background distracting. In addition to muting completely the other party's image information, the receiving party may use immersive video, which is described in “Immersive 3-D Video Conferencing: Challenges, Concepts, and Implementations” by Eisert. In immersive video, the background in the received image information is altered so that it appears to be the same background as the receiving party's background. For example, the receiving party is seated at a large conference table and the received image information is altered to make it appear that the other participant(s) are also seated at the conference table. While this approach is attractive in certain applications, it fails to provide the receiver with freedom to alter the background as he or she wishes. It would be desirable for the receiving party to simply remove the background and replace it with a selected color, such as white.